Software GR Presents Brian Tol: After the Cloud: Using Fog computing in IoT
January 24, 2017
6:00pm - 8:00pm
Atomic Object, 1034 Wealthy St. SE, Grand Rapids, MI
Abstract:
The Internet of Things represents one of the largest opportunities for the software industry since the rise of the web back in the 1990s. And like the early days of the web, IoT is a wild west of standards and best practices: security is fast and loose, interoperability is mostly a pipe dream, and user experiences are very basic… when they work at all. Despite these short comings, the technological and commercial factors driving IoT aren’t slowing down anytime soon. And they haven’t stopped early adopters from succeeding in the space. In our experience, one of the major factors impeding the maturity of IoT is the lack of common design patterns. Too many organizations, including IoT platforms, are reinventing the wheel, and doing a bad job of it. In this talk, Brian Tol presents a case study on how SpinDance inherited a poorly architected IoT product, and how they improved it using Fog computing. He then builds on this story to show how a solid knowledge of Computer Science’s past can guild us into the future.
Bio:
Brian Tol is a Sr. Software Engineer at SpinDance, a software firm focused on the Internet of Things. He’s a software guy passionate about the intersection of technology, business, and user experience. During his time in the industry, he’s worn many hats, including sale guy, project manager, marketer, and information architect, all while maintaining a foot in software development. Before coming to SpinDance, Brian was a CTO focused on web analytics and realtime advertising.
Brian is a graduate of Calvin College, where he eared his Bachelors in computer science. When not coding, Brian enjoys cooking, listening to old vinyl records, learning new board games, and spending time with his family.